T-boned!

This past weekend while sitting with some old camp friends reminiscing about yesteryear, I mentioned that in my hundreds of miles of canoe tripping, I had never swamped. Beyond that, I have never even been on a trip that involved anyone swamping. This includes camper-sterned runs through some impressive rapids on the Flambeau and Chippewa Rivers. Ok, once, in my mid-20's, brother Pete and I were joshing around dockside at my parent's house up on Lake Sylvan and we managed to tip, but that was because we were halfway trying.

Then, the next day, we loaded up a canoe, a borrowed kayak, and our old camp pal John Ott (he stows real small) and headed out to take on Minnehaha creek. We had just done the same section a week ago with my parents, and we were well aware that the creek was running fast and there were some tight turns. The first hour was fine- fun and fast and full of laughs. Jon was in the kayak and despite not being an avid kayaker, he had it figured out pretty quickly. Eli started in my bow with John O duffing. Eli has become quite responsive to my panicked calls of "Draw! No pry! Wait, draw!!" He seems to know just which manuever I want him to perform and does it quickly and effeciently. But then he traded out and ended up in the kayak with his dad and John O took over in my bow with Theo duffing. We toodled along, laughing away, and at some point I took a quick break to rest for a second. You can not do that on the creek when it is running fast. We quickly ended up sidesaddle to the creek right before heading under a culvert type bridge. A dark, mucky, culvert. My plan was to just continue the turn and drift through the culvert backwards and then readjust on the other side. And it would have worked. IF not for that meddling husband. He was behind us and coming on quickly. He tried to avoid us by paddling hard to move around our stern. Only he was in an unfamiliar kayak, and instead of paddling out of our way, instead he came at us dead-on, at ramming speed. And ram he did. He t-boned us squarely in the middle, right next to Theo. We immediately went over, water rushing over the gunnels and the three of us toppling into the creek. Three things should be noted here:
1. For our entire two hour journey the water was never deeper than a foot or two. Except for right at this place. We couldn't touch! We didn't want to touch! It was a muck fest.
2. Eli started laughing at us BEFORE he had been assured that we were all ok.
3. John O and I, despite being trained professional camp counselors from yesteryear, forgot to do the "I'm OK are you OK?" drill. We did do it later, once back safely into the canoe.

Theo was the only one who kept his head during our murky journey through the culvert. John O and I were hooting with laughter (once causing me to take a gulp of the water. yuck.) and completely incapbable of helping Theo gather our stuff. He was gripping tightly to one gunnel while he yelled 'Our stuff! Our stuff!' and repeatedly shoveled water bottles, life jackets, the cooler back into the swamped canoe. Only problem was that the canoe was under water, so whenever he got one back in and reached for the next, the first thing he saved would float back out.

In the end we drifted in this fashion to the other end of the culvert and then were able to touch the bottom and guide the canoe over to the muddy bank. We grabbed belongings as they drifted by, including Theo, who was still grasping for water bottles.

When Eli, seated safe and dry in the front of his kayak, noted that a water bottle and a squirt gun that we had found and plucked from these very waters just an hour earlier were still heading down stream, he tried to push off in the kayak. Alone. Without a paddle. Jon was able to grab him before he got too far, much to his dismay. Luckily, once we dumped and righted the swamped canoe we were able to catch up to our lost cargo and rescue it from an eventual trip over Minnehaha falls.

In the end, the only casualty were John O's sunglasses. He didn't seem too upset. I paddled the rest of the way soaked to the bone with a faint swampy taste in my mouth, but could not stop laughing. Theo, once all our belongings were accounted for, seemed no worse for the wear. He turned out to be the only one who was proactive under pressure. Swamping is ok if you don't have all your clothes for a week, and your food, and your tent, in your canoe with you. I was kind of hoping that my cell phone would end up dead so I could get a new one, but I had, last minute, put it in a ziplock and popped it into the cooler. Shoot. Next time. Given Eli's delight at our plight, I am quite sure that there will be a next time. He is getting so handy in a canoe, there's no doubt in my mind that he can create a t-boning type situation when he wants to. He'll just make sure any of his precious belongings are in the target vessel first.